Fluid coupling devices have been made for connecting fluid flow paths, for example, for coupling a source of fluid such as a container to a consuming line or device, such a patient infusion line. Fluid line sources and sinks may include those for gases or liquids or even aerosol solids, multiphase flows, pressurized or unpressurized fluids, fluidized flows of solids such as granular material, etc. Many applications involve hazards that may arise when a misconnection is made between inappropriate or mismatched sources, including devices, manifolds, etc. and the consumers. This may occur in environments where multiple fluid sources and consumers are present, for example in a clinical treatment environment with multiple component medicaments and medications which are all supplied through tubes. Often a single treatment device may involve making multiple connections to various sources and consumer portions of a single system. Many of these couplings are provided with quick disconnect coupling members to enable efficient connection and disconnection from the source.
In hospitals and other medical facilities, supplies may be incorporated in manifolds with multiple outlets for supplying gases and/or liquids. Care is required when connecting a supply line to ensure proper connections are made. Misconnections have been known to cause death, such as connecting a pressure line for a blood pressure cuff to an infusion port enabling air to be infused into the patient's blood creating a fatal air embolism. These connectors were compatible and the connection was easily made. Some instances reported in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Maude database also show forced misconnections resulting in patient harm where dissimilar connectors were forced together through operator misuse. The U.S. FDA along with several regulatory standard organizations; International Standards Organization (ISO), Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI), and American National Standards Institute, Inc. (ANSI) have been working for several years on finding a solution to these problems. This a difficult problem that is further complicated by the many existing connector systems employed across the wide array of medical products. Many proposed solutions are complex and difficult to manufacture. For example, some require multiple action injection molding and high tolerances. In some applications, there is a need to keep costs as low as possible, such as for disposable sterile medical tubing sets. Other proposed fluid coupling devices are large and cumbersome or difficult to use. Still others are limited in terms of their potential to reveal an improper connection and are also limited in terms of the variety of inter-connectable and non-inter-connectable populations that are enabled by the basic configuration. There is an on-going need for improvements in the field of fluid coupling devices that prevent or discourage mismatched fluid couplings. Known systems are described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,211,439, U.S. Pat. No. 4,619,640, U.S. Pat. No. 4,790,567, U.S. Pat. No. 5,725,511, U.S. Pat. No. 6,402,207, U.S. Pat. No. 6,168,209, U.S. Pat. No. 6,007,107, U.S. RE 38,204, U.S. Pat. No. 6,499,719, and US Patent publications US20060047251, US20080077176, US20110203582, US20100283238, and US20110144626.